[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-January-18, 15:48, said:

Hm. Does the Norwegian regulation specify the form of the announcement?

I am not sure what you mean with "form of the announcement", whether it is the manner or the contents.

Announcement is made by opener's partner saying [...] the same information as is given on the system card.

For 1NT this will be the interval (e.g. "12-14" or "14 good to 17") and possible deviating distribution.

For opening at the two-level a convention name might be sufficient if it is well known and the partnership has no deviations. Safest is to say clearly what the bid implies rather than just the name.

[blackshoe]

I was alluding to the ACBL and EBU regulations, both of which, if I'm not mistaken, specify the word(s) to use when making an announcement. Here's what the ACBL says:

Quote

Announcements are required in the following instances:

After a natural one notrump opening bid.

EXAMPLE: A 15-17 1NT opening bid is made. The partner of the bidder will say aloud, "fifteen to seventeen."

After a ♦ or ♥ transfer response at any level to any level natural notrump opening, overcall or rebid.

An Announcement also is used for those methods that initially treat the bid as a transfer even though rarely the bidder will have a strong hand without the next higher suit. When the message is sent that the transfer was not a transfer, just the first step in showing another type of game-going hand, the call that sends that message must be Alerted.

EXAMPLES: 1NT-P-2♦ and 1♦-1NT-2♦-4♥
The 1NT bidder will say aloud, "Transfer."

After a 1NT forcing or semi-forcing response to a 1♥ or 1♠ opening bid with no interference.

EXAMPLE: 1♥-P-1NT The opening bidder will say aloud, "Forcing" or "Semi-forcing," if there was no other meaning attached to the agreement (such as showing four or more spades).

4. After a non-forcing opening 1♣ or 1♦ for which the opener could have fewer than three cards in the suit opened.
After the opening bid, the opening bidder's partner says, "May be short."

An aside: Mike Flader, in his January "Ruling the Game" column in the ACBL Bulletin, says that if your "could be short" 1♣ opening is now natural per the 1 January change in the General Convention Chart, you should announce "could be as short as two", but this contradicts the alert regulation.

[gnasher]

blackshoe, on 2012-January-18, 18:48, said:

I was alluding to the ACBL and EBU regulations, both of which, if I'm not mistaken, specify the word(s) to use when making an announcement.

The EBU regulations merely require you to state the range, without prescribing a particular wording for doing so. In the EBU, it would be permissible to announce a 1NT opening as "15-17 or equivalent playing strength", "18-20 on the 6-4-2-1 scale", "three honour tricks", or "a six-loser hand".

Curiously, the EBU regulations do specify a particular wording for explaining that you might have a singleton. That would be OK if the required wording weren't so ugly.

[bluejak]

EBU regulations require you to state the range, so "15-17 or equivalent playing strength" is illegal, "three honour tricks" is illegal, and "a six-loser hand" is illegal.

I suppose you could argue you could get away with "18-20 on the 6-4-2-1 scale", but there are a lot of problems created by that even being on the SC.

[gnasher]

bluejak, on 2012-January-18, 20:10, said:

EBU regulations require you to state the range, so "15-17 or equivalent playing strength" is illegal, "three honour tricks" is illegal, and "a six-loser hand" is illegal.

I suppose you could argue you could get away with "18-20 on the 6-4-2-1 scale", but there are a lot of problems created by that even being on the SC.

The relevant part of the EBU regulations reads "Natural 1NT openings are announced by stating the range, eg by saying '12 to 14'." There is nothing there to say you must use the Milton Work Count, or any point-count method.

I've quite sure of my ground here: not only is the wording unambiguous, but I have also had this confirmed in correspondence with the L&EC.

[barmar]

Although the ACBL regulation contains specific words to be used, I think most players, and many directors (including Flader, it seems) think there's an implicit "or words to that effect". So even though they specify "could be short", "may be short" or "could be as short as 2" are considered equivalent and people get away with it.

My pet peave is people who announce "transfer" when they transfer to clubs or diamonds. The ACBL transfer announcements are specifically just for Jacoby and Texas transfers to the majors.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2012-January-19, 03:53, said:

My pet peeve is people who announce "transfer" when they transfer to clubs or diamonds. The ACBL transfer announcements are specifically just for Jacoby and Texas transfers to the majors.

Wrong thread. Pet peeves are in the Water Cooler

[mjj29]

bluejak, on 2012-January-18, 20:10, said:

EBU regulations require you to state the range, so "15-17 or equivalent playing strength" is illegal, "three honour tricks" is illegal, and "a six-loser hand" is illegal.

I suppose you could argue you could get away with "18-20 on the 6-4-2-1 scale", but there are a lot of problems created by that even being on the SC.

The regulations say:

OB 5B8 said:

Always use a consistent form of wording when announcing, preferably the recommended form.

OB 5C1 said:

Natural 1NT openings are announced by stating the range, eg by saying “12 to 14”.

Under rules for agreements we have:

OB 10A3 said:

A partnership may define the strength of a hand by using any method of hand
evaluation that will be understood easily by its opponents (eg High Card Points,
Playing tricks, Losing Trick Count, etc). Regardless, your agreements must meet the
permitted minimums defined in terms of HCP and Opening Points (as in 11 C 1 and 11
F 2, for example).

Which suggests, I think, that using an alternative method to define your range is acceptable (subject to being 'easily understood') and therefore it should be announced using that range. The question, I guess, is whether "at least the playing strength of an average 15 count balanced hand and at most a the playing strength of a good 18 count" is a range or not. I think it probably is.

Certainly the wording of announcements specified in the regulations is optional (per 5B8)

[bluejak]

While I do not think anyone minds bending the regulation a bit, it does say that you state a range, so announcements that do not are illegal.

[gnasher]

"15-17 or equivalent playing strength" does state a range. It states, in abbreviated form, the range "15 Milton Work points or equivalent playing strength" to "17 Milton Work points or equivalent playing strength".

If you're saying that instead of "Three honour tricks" one should say "3-3 honour tricks", you're probably right.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-January-19, 03:53, said:

Although the ACBL regulation contains specific words to be used, I think most players, and many directors (including Flader, it seems) think there's an implicit "or words to that effect". So even though they specify "could be short", "may be short" or "could be as short as 2" are considered equivalent and people get away with it.

My pet peave is people who announce "transfer" when they transfer to clubs or diamonds. The ACBL transfer announcements are specifically just for Jacoby and Texas transfers to the majors.

People get away with a lot of things. They're still wrong.

[mycroft]

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the day my partnership goes 1NT-4♦ Alert!

On the other hand, announcing it as a transfer (which it is) would be *very misleading*; even if I was supposed to Announce it, I'd still Alert it. I'm very glad the regulations don't force me into that kind of ugly situation.

Oh, the explanation? We play SA Texas. "transfer to spades."

The odd thing? Since we agreed on this, I've needed to Texas 4 times - all of them in my other partnership. I've *almost* done the wrong thing once...

[aguahombre]

mycroft, on 2012-January-19, 12:17, said:

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the day my partnership goes 1NT-4♦ Alert!

On the other hand, announcing it as a transfer (which it is) would be *very misleading*; even if I was supposed to Announce it, I'd still Alert it. I'm very glad the regulations don't force me into that kind of ugly situation.

Oh, the explanation? We play SA Texas. "transfer to spades."

The odd thing? Since we agreed on this, I've needed to Texas 4 times - all of them in my other partnership. I've *almost* done the wrong thing once...

Actually what you want to do is what you should do on SA Texas. Finally, way down there in item paren 7 under responses to NT openings, they spell it out precisely (ACBL Alert Procedures document).

Bids of 4D and 4H if transfers to hearts and to spades respectively are announced. That does not include your methods, and you would be correct to alert them. That word "respectively" does the job.

[mycroft]

mycroft, on 2012-January-19, 12:17, said:

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the day my partnership goes 1NT-4♦ Alert!

Quote

even if I was supposed to Announce it, I'd still Alert it. I'm very glad the regulations don't force me into that kind of ugly situation.

Sorry, I thought it was clear. Unsurprisingly, I *have* read the Alert procedure, once or twice.

[barmar]

My partnership goes 1NT-2♦/♥ Alert! all the time, because we play a nonstandard variant of Jacoby Transfers (responder's first bid is normally a transfer to the next suit, but could be the start of a sequence to transfer to a minor).

But our Texas is normal.

[schulken]

Three things. First, I have played with partners who make a big deal of asking the point range (when NT opener's partner forgot to announce) while holding 3 HCP and a balanced hand. If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Second, following silence from the NT opener's partner, I have evolved (digressed, perhaps) to where I either pick up the NT opener's CC (I may have to ask for it if it's across the table) rather than asking the point range. No reason to wake the offender if it's not necessary. If you claim damage and you checked the CC and they were confused in their actions, I think that's a far better argument than assuming the HCP count is 15-17, even though the TD should be amenable in either case. Finally, there are players (I'm not one of them) who play different defenses against different NT opening ranges. Somehow, the defenders have to have some idea what they're defending against, and over caller's partner would need to know which system they're using. How else, unless you ask or look at the opponents' CC?

[Vampyr]

mycroft, on 2012-January-19, 12:17, said:

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the day my partnership goes 1NT-4♦ Alert!

I play this as a transfer too, although Texas, not SA. The most recent EBU regulations on alerts are pretty good, but they have got this one wrong -- it is not subject to alert or announcement.

[mgoetze]

pran, on 2012-January-18, 18:12, said:

Announcement is made by opener's partner saying [...] the same information as is given on the system card.

So I might potentially have to say "5 to 10 points, 6 hearts (or rarely 5) OR 5 to 10 points, 6 spades (or rarely 5) OR 23 to 25 balanced OR 28 or more, balanced OR game-forcing in a minor" whenever partner opens 2♦? (Semirandom example from German Team Trials.)

[Coelacanth]

blackshoe, on 2012-January-18, 18:48, said:

An aside: Mike Flader, in his January "Ruling the Game" column in the ACBL Bulletin, says that if your "could be short" 1♣ opening is now natural per the 1 January change in the General Convention Chart, you should announce "could be as short as two", but this contradicts the alert regulation.

Not sure why I missed this post earlier, but this is not correct. There is no change to either the definition of "announceable" agreements nor to the form of the announcement. If you open 1♣ with 4=4=3=2, you announce "may be short" or "could be as short as two" or whatever. If you open 1♣ on 4=4=4=1, you Alert. (I have seen pairs announce this, which I find aggravating.)

The only change that came into effect on 1 January is that on the GCC it is no longer legal to play an artificial defense over the 4432 short club. In other words, a non-forcing 1♣ opener that may be as short as two cards is explicitly defined as natural for the purpose of which defenses are permitted.

[blackshoe]

Coelacanth, on 2012-January-26, 15:36, said:

Not sure why I missed this post earlier, but this is not correct. There is no change to either the definition of "announceable" agreements nor to the form of the announcement. If you open 1♣ with 4=4=3=2, you announce "may be short" or "could be as short as two" or whatever. If you open 1♣ on 4=4=4=1, you Alert. (I have seen pairs announce this, which I find aggravating.)

The only change that came into effect on 1 January is that on the GCC it is no longer legal to play an artificial defense over the 4432 short club. In other words, a non-forcing 1♣ opener that may be as short as two cards is explicitly defined as natural for the purpose of which defenses are permitted.

What I said was that "could be as short as two", which is what Flader said you should announce, is not in accordance with the regulation, which says the proper announcement is "may be short". This has nothing much to do with the change to the GCC. As for the 4=4=4=1 1♣ opening, if it is systemically not forcing, it requires the same announcement as the 4=4=3=2 hand: "may be short". Only if it is systemically forcing is "alert" correct.